Mahatma Gandhi and Freedom Movement || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 When you are asking that there are so many things and what is it that needs to be done,

00:08 I am reminded of the time when Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa to India.

00:16 And he had been in South Africa at the center of a civil movement for quite a while, almost

00:28 two decades, more than two decades.

00:31 In between he had kept coming to India to attend Congress sessions and to visit and

00:35 these things.

00:38 But there was not much depth in those visits.

00:42 So finally when he left South Africa for good and landed in India, in the middle of the

00:52 second decade of the last century, Gopal Krishna Gokhale told him, "No public life for you

01:02 for at least one year.

01:05 Yes, you have been an outstanding leader in South Africa and you had victories and you

01:14 have the capability to mobilize people and rally them behind you.

01:19 But no public life in India for you for at least one year.

01:24 Just abstain.

01:25 Observe, watch, travel, no.

01:31 First of all read this country because there are just too many things at too many places.

01:36 You cannot blindly rush into anything.

01:39 At the same time you cannot wait for long Gandhi.

01:43 You are already in your 40s.

01:47 You are already in your 40s and you are well equipped to do something.

01:52 The kind of experience, the repository that you have cannot be allowed to go waste.

01:56 It must be put in the service of the nation.

01:58 But it cannot be immediately rushed.

02:04 So have some kind of a sabbatical for one year."

02:09 Gandhiji considered Gokhale his teacher and he followed the advice.

02:16 He just kept studying.

02:17 He said there are so many things happening in this vast land from Burma till Afghanistan,

02:29 from Tibet till Lanka.

02:41 And then he started to get a handle on things.

02:51 Then came the Champaran movement.

02:54 It's not that he had consciously selected to be in Champaran.

02:59 That too was a kind of an accident.

03:01 But then when you are prepared, then very solemn accidents happen with you.

03:18 Even accidentally the right things can happen to you only if you are prepared.

03:27 And Gandhiji knew that there was something that needs to be done but I don't yet know

03:32 what is it that needs to be done.

03:33 Just like your question.

03:34 There are so many things happening everywhere.

03:38 It's a very vast country.

03:40 It's a subcontinent.

03:43 What do I put my hand into?

03:47 So he was reading, he was meeting people, he was travelling extensively.

03:52 You are studying the Indian landscape.

03:57 And then the accident happened.

04:04 Somebody from a god-forsaken village, a district in Bihar came to him and kept shadowing him

04:17 and said that such a thing is happening there and we need you to come and support us and

04:24 defend our rights.

04:28 The British masters are forcibly asking us to grow opium on 15% of our land and that's

04:36 exploitative.

04:37 Are you getting it?

04:42 If you are serious about the whole thing, what would you do?

04:46 You would do what he did.

04:48 You would read, you would meet, you would travel.

04:51 You would observe.

04:55 You would be all the time alert.

04:59 You would want to find out an opportunity.

05:03 And it's far easier today.

05:06 It's the information age.

05:09 Even travelling is far easier today.

05:11 At that time to reach Champaran you had to travel on an elephant back.

05:16 That's how Gandhi reached.

05:23 Today all these things are available.

05:27 You can fly to the mazons if you want to.

05:32 And you don't need to fly because all the information is available.

05:36 The videos are there, the perspectives are there.

05:38 What is it that you want?

05:45 It's all there.

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